They have to face a fellow human being and decide whether or not that person represents a threat that is worth killing.

They have to leave their families behind and live in the unreal world where death could be waiting behind every corner.

They have to believe in their mission each day, even if they have their doubts.

They return home with the memories of the war alive in their minds.

Soldiers Who Doubt

I read a lot of history, and I’m always struck by how many veterans from the Second World War returned home with a strong commitment to peace.

I also read and listen to the accounts of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and if you read enough of them, you’ll find that many soldiers over there are wondering what the heck they’re doing over there. While some are quite certain about these wars, there are many who are afraid to voice their doubts.

One solider shared that both hawks and pacifists make it hard for soldiers to process their doubts and questions. The hawks insist on never questioning the mission and the pacifists remain aloof and inaccessible to soldiers. (I’ve read enough pacifist literature to understand why a soldier who has been trained to kill would be hesitant to speak with them!)

For a soldier in the midst of a war who has his doubts, it can seem that there is nowhere to go.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that there are a variety of Christian responses to war that range from just war theory to pacifism, but no matter what anyone has done or believes, I want to create a space for soldiers to ask tough questions. I never want a soldier to feel that I’m so pro or anti war that he can’t discuss the tough parts with me.

When Memorial Day is Over

Whatever we believe about war, there is one thing upon which everyone can agree: our veterans need help after the war. I worry that our defense spending over the years has focused too much on deployment and not enough on resettling our soldiers—which is how we ended up with the Walter Reed Hospital scandal. In fact, veterans still face quite a lot of challenges getting the care they need.

I can’t pretend to know what soldiers go through, but I can listen to them.

The story of Team Rubicon on Snap Judgment is a really helpful glimpse at the tension that soldiers face in combat and the challenges they face when they return home (It’s short, so listen to it here). In this story, soldiers find that they can use their survival skills to help people in disaster areas. This ends up being the kind of high-stakes challenge that they learned to thrive on while in combat, only they find that the rewards are far greater.

Listening to Our Soldiers

These are the stories that we need to listen to and learn from on Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a complicated holiday. 

Our veterans don’t give us a uniform portrait of the wars we’re in today. In fact, their views vary quite a lot.

It is good for Christians to wrestle with the teachings of Jesus about loving our enemies and being peacemakers, especially how to apply them to our political decisions. The choices aren’t always black and white. However, we owe it to our soldiers to rethink what we’re asking them to do, to reconsider what Jesus meant about love and peace, and to reexamine whether our nation has done enough to support them when they return home.

It is good to honor the virtues of courage and self-sacrifice, but it’s possible to be cheering so loud that we drown out what our soldiers are saying.

Over the years the local politicians debated the wisdom of having a military base on the edge of Philadelphia. Throughout the region similar debates cropped up from time to time about similar bases.

More often than not, the bases remained open. While some could make an argument for each base’s importance and function in the grand military scheme of things (though a “naval” base north of Philly strikes me as a hard sell), the loudest and most repeated argument proposed for keeping the bases was the local economy.

“If our little Naval Air base closed down, the local businesses around the base would experience a loss in business and put a lot of hard-working Americans out of work.” So we almost always kept the bases, kept spending our tax dollars on them, and kept folks employed.

A few years later, I began to notice that a lot of my friends had fathers who worked for a local business that built all kinds of stuff for the military. In fact, one of these companies still employs thousands of people in the Philadelphia area, doing business in both the civilian and military sectors.

A few years after that I began to notice that a lot of scientific research at universities is also funded by the United States Defense Department—which used to be aptly named the “War” Department. Some folks at universities can’t talk about their research projects from time to time because they are classified.

These scattered memories came to mind while I watched several commercials during the World Series that aim to support our troops and their families. It’s a nice sentiment to wish them well with the fast approaching holiday season and to pray for their safe return to their families.

However, while we may sing Christmas carols about peace on earth, pray for the safety of our soldiers, and the coming of the Prince of Peace, the three examples above hint that the stability of our economy depends on none of those things taking place. We need our soldiers to be placed into harm’s way even as we wish them the best. We need wars, we need enemies, and we need a military to fight them all so that we can keep our bases, businesses, and overall economy running.

I’m not willing to say that we need to scrap the entire military of the United States. Every secular state needs to make provisions for national defense (though the nature of that defense is debatable). What bothers me is the way our nation’s economy depends so heavily on military spending, keeping our soldiers in harm’s way, even while we’re told to honor them and to wish them season’s greetings

We could invest more money into nation-building, diplomacy, education, and development, but we already have an economy that depends on defense spending, so it’s way more comfortable to keep manufacturing arms and tearing apart families through lengthy deployments. But don’t worry! We are united in the support of our soldiers and wish them a happy holidays.

That should make things better, right?

The truth is that America has become cowardly and defeatist in its approach to the economy and to innovation. We have bought into the fear that we can’t survive economically by supporting global education, development, and peace. War can be good for business, and so we stay addicted to it.

Save an unnecessary military base for the sake of local jobs? Absolutely. Pump money out to defense contractors as we continue our fight in Afghanistan and keep Americans working in the production of war material? Of course! Seek other options for global peace and local economic development?

Nah. Let’s just keep putting our soldiers in harm’s way.

We tell ourselves that our soldiers like being honored, even if they have to risk their lives, get exposed to carcinogenic explosives, endure post-traumatic stress disorders, and miss out on irreplaceable time with their families. The American soldier is no doubt courageous, but in the midst of honoring them we fail to discuss our nation’s cowardice, our unwillingness to make sacrifices, and our fear of changing our systems and economy.

Perhaps we are guilty of hiding behind the bravery of our soldiers because we fear being exposed for what we are. Before we rush to honor the sacrifices of our soldiers, perhaps we should first ask what we are willing to sacrifice.

There is something beautiful and honorable about those who put their own lives in the path of danger for the sake of others. I have a good friend who works the tough hours as a police officer, and I can’t express how grateful I am to have someone with so level a head and desire to serve out on the streets.

I also know several former soldiers, veterans of the Second Iraq War. Some have moved on with their lives without the war impacting them too terribly, while others suffer severe headaches, tumors, and fatigue—the effects of the enriched uranium in our bombs also causing severe cancer and birth defects among the civilians in the war zones of Iraq and beyond.

Wherever these veterans are today, I am grateful that they put their own lives on hold, left family and friends, and traveled to distant lands. I believe they joined the American army with the best of intentions, hoping to hold up the ideals of liberty and justice. We can debate how our soldiers have been used by their superiors, the motives of our government, and the exceptions to these exemplary young people, but on the whole, I only know of honorable, dedicated people in our military.

There are always exceptions—those who join for the power and authority or simple financial reasons—though on the whole our veterans are worthy of being remembered and honored. In addition, many who have fought through the hell of war have come back as the strongest advocates for peace and diplomacy.

While it is good to honor these good people, Christians have a gray area to navigate. It is common for Christians to apply Jesus’ words from John 15:13 to the military context: giving one’s life for another. However, such a use of this passage makes a terrible blunder, mixing up one kind of sacrifice for another. This doesn’t negate the good that our soldiers do. It’s more a matter of apples and oranges.

Jesus laid down his life in a non-violent manner before the Roman and Jewish leaders, dying for the sake of all humanity—even those who murdered him. His death was a rejection of the empire’s path to establishing a Kingdom, choosing instead to inaugurate God’s Kingdom rule by laying down his own life, setting rule through power and domination aside, and demonstrating his love through his own death.

Jesus sacrificed himself for the sake of his enemies and friends. He never threatened anyone with physical harm. He rejected the kingdoms of this world in favor of God’s ground up, mustard-seed-style, yeast-through-dough Kingdom.

Though we hope America’s soldiers are only deployed for the cause of freedom and justice, we must keep in mind that our soldiers are at the disposal of the American government, which is not to be confused with God’s Kingdom. Soldiers are trained to kill their enemies, and as such they sacrifice themselves for their friends only, not for the sake of the enemy.

As General Patton once said, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

And so we should certainly honor selflessness and courage. We should remember those who laid their own lives on the line for the sake of their friends.

However, we should not quote Jesus in the context of Memorial Day. Jesus chose a path of non-violence. We can debate whether such a path is feasible for a nation state today, but we should not confuse a non-violent path with a path that clearly puts violence on the table.

In addition, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and he demonstrated his incredible love by not only dying for his friends, but also his enemies—offering them a chance to be reconciled to God. It should not surprise us that Jesus has set the bar for love incredibly high. We should also not be surprised that the love of Jesus is something quite different from the love of a soldier for friend or country. There are no doubt some similarities and points of contact, but we are dealing with two very different things.

As we honor the dedication of our men and women in uniform, may we spend even more time pondering and honoring the height, length, breadth, and depth of God’s love for everyone.